Carl Vine has recently completed his String Quartet No 4, a Musica Viva Australia commission to mark his own 50th birthday. The 15-minute work will be premiered by the renowned Takács Quartet on a 9-date tour of all the Australian state capitals, commencing in Perth on 22 November and ending in Melbourne on 6 December.

The composer writes:

‘Much of my previous concert music describes a journey from darkness to light; from uncertainty to affirmation. Although this approach doesn’t demand that optimism be entirely blind, the current state of our little planet has given this quartet a decidedly bittersweet flavour in its exploration of conflict without resolution.

The work is in one movement of two roughly equal halves. It opens by summoning the four players into a conversation that, eventually, drifts into a ‘murmuring’ that introduces the first sign of dissent. A slow ostinato pattern heralds a reflective violin solo that is overtaken by antagonism, but returns unperturbed to close the first half.

The second half sets angular rhythmic gestures, heard at its outset, in opposition to the pensive chorale that immediately follows. The aggression of the rhythmic gestures develops continually, eventually subsuming all other material heard in the work. There is no coalescence, and the chorale closes the work only because the brutal rhythms have, for the moment, ceased.’

New Vine orchestral disc on ABC Classics
A new all-Vine disc has just been released on ABC Classics containing performances by the Tasmanian SO and Ola Rudner. Part of the ABC’s new Composer Series it comprises the Oboe Concerto (soloist Diana Doherty), Smith’s Alchemy (Vine’s reworking for string orchestra of his 3rd Quartet), and the premiere recordings of Canzona for strings and the Tempest Suite - the latter from his 1993 ballet score for Queensland Ballet Company.